Social media is increasingly a huge part of a large number of businesses.

Not
only do social media channels provide an excellent platform for promoting
your business and reaching new potential customers but it can also help you
to better communicate with your existing contacts, to crowdsource ideas, to
get feedback and more.

For these reasons, every business should be active on social media and
looking to take advantage of the many different opportunities it presents. The
only downside? It all takes such a long time.

That's where social media tools come in that can help you to streamline the
process and to get more done in less time. In business terms these are 'force
multipliers' and when used correctly they can send your social media ROI
through the roof. Read on and we'll look at 30 of the best that can help you to
get the most from your social media efforts, in no particular order…

1. IFTTT
 
https://ifttt.com/

IFTT stands for 'If This, Then That' and is an incredibly powerful tool for
linking different social media accounts and other web apps together. What
this means is that an event occurring on one platform can 'trigger' an event in
another (all defined through what are known as 'recipes').
An excellent example of this would be to set up a recipe that automatically
Tweets all your Facebook posts. More ambitious though would be something
like a system that would add your Tweets to a Google Drive spreadsheet or
that would add messages you need to respond to to a 'Todoist' list. The
possibilities are endless.

2. Buffer
https://bufferapp.com/

Buffer is a very popular tool that lets you create a queue of social media
content. Write 20 Tweets, set a schedule for them to be posted and then
watch as they are automatically uploaded over a given time period. It's not
just for Twitter though: it also supports Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn so
that you can post across your social accounts simultaneously.

This way you can save a lot of time and make sure that your account never
goes quiet. What's more though, it's also handy if you are outsourcing your
social media as it means you won't need to give all your passwords out to
your service providers. It's free to use but more features are available for
those willing to pay.
3. SocialBro
http://www.socialbro.com/

SocialBro is a 'Twitter management tool' that gives you analytics and

information about individual posts, followers and more. It's free for the first 15
days, so give it a try and see if it fits into your workflow.
4. Tweetdeck
https://about.twitter.com/products/tweetdeck

Another very popular choice among internet marketers and Twitter fans alike.
Tweedeck allows you to track and organize the people you're following via an
intuitive and customizable dashboard. You can see easily the activity of
specific lists, follows and hashtags.

If you find yourself often searching for specific hashtags or users when you
visit Twitter, then you can add these to Tweetdeck and then very quickly and
easily see them as soon as you load up. This is particularly useful for those
who use Twitter for research purposes and can potentially save you a lot of
time.
5. SharedCount
https://www.sharedcount.com/

Social media marketing and content marketing are a match made in heaven.
Just create your stellar piece of writing, share it to social media and then
watch as it spreads around the globe. That's the idea anyway but how do you
know if your plan has been successful?

SharedCount is a tool that lets you see at a glance how much your content
has spread across various platforms and shows the number of Tweets, Pins,
Diggs, FB likes and more all in one place at a glance.
6. Piktochart
http://piktochart.com/

Social media marketing isn't all about sharing and tracking though. Just as
important is the process of creating that sharable content.

Piktochart is a tool that is perfectly designed to meet this end. It's a very easy
to use and free-to-try infographic creator that you can use to make
professional looking, eye-catching infographics that will encourage lots of
shares and likes.
7. Compfight
http://compfight.com/

You can spend hours trawling the web looking for creative commons images.
Compfight though has you covered and is an excellent resource with tons of
images on every topic. Just make sure you remember to include attribution.

As a tip, you can save yourself time by creating a folder on your own
computer of images you might want to use later so you can add them as you
come across.
8. Followerwonk
https://followerwonk.com/

Followerwonk is entirely free and provides tons of helpful tools for analyzing
your Twitter followers and optimizing your account. You'll have to check it out
yourself to see all of the helpful features on offer but one of the best
examples is the 'time-of-day' charts which let you see when your followers are
most active and most likely to see what you're tweeting.

This is very helpful as you can then use this information to inform your buffer
account – ensuring that you are sending your tweets at the optimal time.
9. Social Rank
https://www.socialrank.com/

Social Rank will help you to identify your top 10 followers in terms of their
value (how many people are following them), their engagement (how often
they retweet or favorite your posts) and those who offer both these things
combined.

This can be a very useful tool for using Twitter to network. At the same time,
it can help you to build a relationship with your followers who are the most
valuable to you – which in turn can help you to maximize the effectiveness of
your subsequent tweeting. If you've ever read '1,000 True Fans' then you'll
know just how important it is to get a few influential followers behind you.
10. LikeAlyzer
http://likealyzer.com/

If it sometimes feels as though your Facebook efforts are a wild stab in the
dark, then LikeAlyzer can change all that for you. Not only is this fun to say
but it's also incredibly helpful as it shows you which of your Facebook page
posts are getting the most attention and then provides a list of
recommendations. It also lets you compare your success to other pages in
your industry or niche.
11. Fanpage Karma
http://www.fanpagekarma.com/

Similarly, Fanpage Karma provides yet more metrics for your Facebook page.
These include growth, engagement and response time. You are then given
an overall 'Karam' score based on these various stats.

12. Klout
https://klout.com/home

Klout is another one of those very well-known tools for social media
marketers that you might have heard discussed on various blogs or podcasts.
What it does is to collect a range of information from a single user's various
social profiles in order to calculate their overall 'reach' which is then scored
out of 100.
This allows you to track your own score and aim to increase it but additionally
it can also let you know who you should be engaging with and illustrate your
worth to others if you are offering to promote their products or services. You
can charge a lot more for a testimonial if your Klout score is high.

13. Canva
https://www.canva.com/

Canva is a tool you can use to create beautiful, sharable graphics. It makes
the process very quick and easy with a drag-and-drop interface and it also
gives you access to a range of stock images. You can use it to create
infographics but also banners and other images. You can try it for free but
you'll need to pay for more advanced features.
14. Adobe Creative Cloud
https://creative.adobe.com/

While tools like Canva are very intuitive and quick to use, for full creative
control you'll need something like Adobe Illustrator which will let you create
beautiful images that don't lose their definition no matter how much you zoom
in or out. With a Creative Cloud subscription you'll also get access to things
like Photoshop and Premier – the latter of which can be used to create
YouTube and Vine videos of professional quality. The only downside is that
it's very expensive – so it's only really one for bigger companies or successful
entrepreneurs.
15. Mention
https://en.mention.com/

Part of your job as a social media marketer is to be 'everywhere at once'.

Mention is a tool that claims to 'go beyond Google Alerts' by making sure you
are notified every time you or your business is mentioned anywhere on the
web. That way you can make sure to respond to comments and to look after
your digital reputation.
16. Keyhole
http://keyhole.co/

If you're running a hashtag complain on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram then

Keyhole will help you to track it with a range of useful stats and graphs.
17. News.me
http://www.news.me/

Another tool that is useful for researching, News.me will show you the top five
stories shared by your contacts on Facebook or Twitter.
18. Commun.it
http://commun.it/

Commun.it is useful for organizing and growing your list of followers and can
be used for multiple accounts at once. It can also give you information
regarding the most influential accounts in your niche telling you who you
should be following. Remember, following someone is often one of the best
ways to get followed back.
19. Twtrland
http://twtrland.com/

Twtrland can show you what's happening on your Twitter, Facebook or

Instagram profile at any given time. Not only will you see how many followers
you have across accounts but you'll also be able to see how many of them
are online at that moment, where in the world they're from and more.

20. NeedTagger
http://www.needtagger.com/

A useful one for finding new prospective customers: 'NeedTagger' uses filters
to run a search looking for Twitter users who might be interested in your
particular services or products.
21. Filament
http://filament.io/

Filament allows you start measuring your blog’s engagement. You’ll be able
to see growth spikes and know what caused them. Find where to promote
most effectively, how to drive new subscribers and more.
22. Flare
http://filament.io/flare

There are lots of WordPress plugins that allow you to add social sharing
buttons to your content. Flare gets the nod though for allowing a lot more
control over precisely where you want to put those buttons. Literally drag and
drop them anywhere on your site.
23. TF Social Share
https://wordpress.org/plugins/twitter-facebook-google-plusone-share/

This is a handy Wordpress plug-in that adds social like/share buttons on your
posts and pages so your visitors can share your content with a click of a
button.
24. Wolfram Alpha Facebook Report
http://www.wolframalpha.com/facebook/

Wolfram Alpha's knowledge engine includes a powerful tool for analyzing

Facebook profiles. This can tell you everything from how much content you
share to the relationship statuses of your contacts. This is for profiles rather
than pages note but if you use your personal profile for marketing then this
could be useful.
25. Rival IQ
https://www.rivaliq.com/

Rival IQ lets you track the social media efforts of your competition. You can
that way see easily what they're up to on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and
Google+. It also provides some tools for spying on their SEO efforts.
There's a 14 day free trial but you'll need to pay if you want to use it beyond
that point.
26. Buzz Sumo
 
http://buzzsumo.com/
 

Buzz Sumo lets you quickly find the most popular content for a given topic or
website. This is very useful if you're looking for hot topics to tweet about or to
respond to, or for places to comment for that matter!
27. Swayy
http://www.swayy.co/

If you want to share interesting new content to your Twitter or Facebook

network, then Swayy will help you to quickly find stories in your niche. Handy
for keeping your page updated without having to keep generating new
content of your own.
28. Zapier
 
https://zapier.com/

Zapier is similar to IFTTT but offers more channels at the cost of no longer
being free. You do get the first five recipes for free though and these will let
you include services from MailChimp, Disqus and other tools you're probably
using as an internet marketer.
29. Bitly
https://bitly.com/

One of the original and most popular URL shorteners. Handy for sharing links
when you don't have much space, or for masking your URL if you should
need to for whatever reason.
30. Feedly
 
https://feedly.com

Another great place for finding content to share, inspiration for new posts and
more. Feedly works in the browser or as an app and lets you easily read
feeds from multiple blogs in your niche. It also works with IFTTT which
creates some interesting automated possibilities.

So there you go! Thirty different tools including apps, plugins, software and
services that you can use to enhance your social media efforts.

Add any of these to your arsenal of social media marketing tools and
experience more results in your business!